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5 Effective Ways to Handle Common Problems and Complaints in Nursing Homes

As an adult child, caring for your elderly parents who can no longer look after themselves can be a challenge. You may find that juggling between their needs and your responsibilities can become unmanageable in the long run. Although this may be a difficult choice, you may need to think about sending your loved one to a nursing home or consider in-home care. All in all, you want your parents in an environment where they can thrive and enjoy a quality life.

Nursing homes provide care to millions of senior citizens in the United States. These facilities provide compassionate quality care from the professionals most of the time. However, family members or even residents may sometimes complain about the quality of care. Feel free to speak out if you have concerns about a specific incident or an ongoing situation. Read on to learn how to problem-solve in nursing homes to get results.

How to Handle Common Problems and Complaints in a Nursing Home

The nursing home industry is constantly faced with various challenges due to ever-changing regulations, staffing shortages, and declining profits. These may lead to negligence issues since the available staff is expected to perform complex treatments with limited resources.

While some actions may cause inconveniences but no harm to the overall health of patients, others may cause pain and even serious harm. Physical abuse and neglect are major causes of concern because they put your loved one in immediate danger of severe injury or death.

Here are practical steps to take if you have concerns about the quality of care in a nursing home.

Investigate Before You Complain to the Staff or Administration

There are various forms of complaints in nursing homes. While many are valid and need immediate action, some are personal views about the lack of quality care among residents and family members with straightforward solutions. Be sure to talk to primary caregivers and get details before complaining to the staff or administration. It might just be a misunderstanding with a simple explanation. Some common complaints include:

Roommate Conflicts

There is always a possibility of conflict when people share a room due to differences in personalities and interests. It is best to give the residents a period of adjustment to know each other if the facility lacks private rooms or if you cannot afford one. Also, many nursing homes allow room change if the conflict cannot be resolved.

Lost Items

Items are likely to get lost in shared spaces. They may not be necessarily stolen but can be misplaced. It is advisable to have an insurance cover on items that get easily lost, like eyeglasses, hearing aids, and dentures.

Food Issues

There is no doubt that home meals are better than nursing facility food. As people age, they tend to lose taste making it impossible to enjoy even good food. This may lead to malnutrition if left unchecked. You can ask the caregivers about the kinds of food allowed within the facility and bring some whenever you visit. Just ensure that the meals are within their special diet list.

Work To Establish Good Relationships with the Nursing Aides

The aides are the people who look after your loved ones. Build trust and friendship between them, your family, and other residents. Make an effort to know them as individuals and appreciate the excellent work they do. You can also help them understand your mother’s habits, preferences, and quirks. This allows the staff to take good care of your loved ones. For instance, they may know to whom the hearing aids they found in the bundled bedsheets belong.

Get Involved in the Nursing Home

Do you have any talent that you can share with the residents? Most times, there is nothing much for the elderly to do, leading to another common problem in nursing homes, boredom. You can volunteer your skills during regular events and become a familiar face in the community. The skills can be music, computer instruction, storytelling, or art. 

At times, all your parents need is to spend some quality time with their loved ones. Ask your family and friends to join in the fun and become part of the community. Your parents are more likely to participate in group activities, keeping them engaged. Also, become a regular visitor, show up any time of the day, and make yourself a welcome presence among staff and residents. It allows you to observe, note, and report serious lapses in care such as neglect of personal hygiene, weight loss, illness, or apparent deterioration.

Don’t Miss Important Meetings

Nursing homes have regular meetings, quarterly or yearly. You can ask the staff for the dates and times of such meetings and include them in your calendar. Take this opportunity to understand how things run in the facility and give suggestions where needed. Compliment the staff when they are doing well, and they will be more inclined to change when things go wrong

You can also ask questions and raise your concerns with the direct caregivers regarding your family member. Be sure to consider what the staff says since they spend more time than anyone with the residents. They may know your loved one needs more than you may like to admit.

Follow Chain of Command in Case of Serious Problems

It is a good idea to try solving things with the staff or organization first. You can talk to the individual in question or manager to put things right through an informal conversation. However, you should launch a formal complaint about serious issues such as verbal, physical, and sexual abuse to the nursing home administration, an ombudsman, and the department of health in your state.

Wrapping Up

Nursing homes provide 24/7 skilled nursing and supportive care to aging and disabled adults. While most residents and their families have a positive experience with nursing facilities, problems may sometimes arise. Raising concerns is crucial in protecting the rights of the elderly and improving the quality of nursing home services. Ensure to approach the issue with a mindset of problem-solving as opposed to blaming. And if all this doesn’t work, email [email protected] and someone on our corporate team will contact you.

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Senior Communities Specifically Combat The Nature Of Loneliness In Isolation

Winter, both literally and figuratively, can be a lonely time. This is especially true in someone living alone, growing old alone, without frequent visits and calls from friends and loved ones. Their heartache falls heavy on our shoulders.

The pandemic has dramatically increased physical isolation and the feelings of loneliness so suddenly, and for such a long period, that there is no way that these feelings aren’t damaging to our loved ones who are living alone. When evidence of loneliness arises, it’s essential to know how to combat the negative feelings and reach out for contact.

The Nature of Loneliness

Loneliness is personal and difficult to explain. Many people associate loneliness with being physically alone, but you can feel even more alone in a room full of people. We feel lonely when we cannot, for one reason or another, seem to connect on a personal level with another person. We need to feel understood by someone, and we need to feel valued.

Everyone is different in the amount of connection needed to meet their needs. People with close friends that they have continuous contact with, a family that they routinely see, and an active social calendar are less lonely.

Almost 30% of our elderly population currently live alone. Over time, so many people that they knew, that made them feel valued and safe, have been lost to time. It can be difficult for aging parents to accept nurturing and reassurance from their children because they are the ones who are supposed to be doing the nurturing and the reassuring. It’s a hard pill to swallow.

Unfortunately, COVID-19 has taken us away from our extended family members who need us and has replaced much of our face-to-face contact with phone calls and sporadic visits that can leave us feeling more guilty than when we arrived.

Many in our senior population have never used a computer, let alone Zoom. Phone calls are great when issues are discussed, gossip is shared, and laughs are had, but superficial calls may have little benefit when loneliness is concerned.

Our remaining time with our loved ones shouldn’t be this way. Do you know how to tell if your loved one is lonely in the isolation that still defines our day-to-day schedules?

Effects of Loneliness and the Pandemic

Loneliness increases a person’s sensitivity towards what they consider a threat, especially socially. The longer that they are separated from the community outside, the more the outside world seems too fast and too far away.

The coronavirus and the resulting quarantine are each major life events that cause both emotional and psychological damages in the elderly, many of whom already feel they are in a precarious place with their health. They need to connect with us, and we need to connect with them, meaningfully. And science has proven that we cannot exist without human contact.

Some of our loved ones may feel secure enough to express their emotions while others may not know how. Signs of loneliness in our elderly population include:

• Increased/Decreased sleeping hours
• Higher anxiety
• Neglecting hygiene
• Increased/Decreased weight, eating problems
• Increased amount of time online chatting with total strangers
• Making important decisions erratically
• Increasing mental health distress
• Excessive changes in ‘calming’ activities, such as shopping or showering

When our loved ones are lonely, they are more prone to falls, cognitive decline, and feelings of hopelessness. Loneliness can wreak havoc on your immune system and increase inflammation in the body. Serious heart events can happen, and dementia symptoms can worsen by up to 50%.

As their loneliness increases, their related problems increase and the less they will want to bother you. They are more likely to fall and less likely to tell you about it. Again, they are more likely to sink into depression and less likely to tell you how they feel.

The coronavirus has prevented us from physically being there to observe how they walk, how they are taking care of themselves, and gauge how they feel. They need to be heard, they need to be seen, and they need to be a part of a supportive community. The pandemic seems to have taken some very important options from us.

Combating Loneliness by Staying Active with Purpose

The most effective way to support your loved ones is to give them the community that they need to grow. Loneliness decreases with physical and mental activities that support healthy cognitive functions. The unfortunate truth is that, as much as we want to, we can’t always be there when we want to be. We have careers, children, and social lives that are already difficult to balance, and help is both needed and desired.

Your loved one needs, and deserves, physical activities, mental challenges, and friends to share their experiences with. For example, when many people hear about senior communities, their minds have already pulled up images of movie-quality nursing homes, complete with neglected patients, dirty rooms, and abusive staff. This simply isn’t the case in reality.

A senior-based community allows our elderly loved ones to live in an environment with a slightly slower pace, where they have plenty of activities to choose from and plenty of people to converse with when you can’t be there. Possible activities include, but are definitely not limited to:

• Structured exercise based upon ability: low impact chair exercises, pool aerobics, walking clubs, physical therapy, etc.
• Specialized groups, such as informal book clubs, singing groups, church meetings, etc.
• Crafts and hobbies
• Computer classes geared towards the elderly
• Volunteering for a cause
• Field trips with new friends: shopping, going to the movies, going out to dinner

Senior communities don’t exist singularly for older adults who can no longer care for themselves. Many people are now making a move earlier in their lives, choosing to live out their retirement in an independent apartment in the community, where life moves a little slower, they can get used to the environment, and where help is just a hop and a skip away.

Peace of Mind for All

Rates of loneliness and isolation decrease in senior communities due to their growing options for activities, ways to live independently, and resemblance to a fancy hotel, rather than a hospital. Fine dining, plenty of safe social activities, and wellness support all contribute to a comfortable, and nurturing environment.

Senior communities, and their related activities, specifically combat the nature of loneliness in isolation. A senior community can offer your loved ones many of the choices that COVID-19 has taken away from them.

Unfortunately, the pandemic seems far from being over. Right now would be an excellent time to contact us about our community and the full services we can offer you. Accel Longmont can not only relieve the loneliness in your loved one’s life, but they can also take at least some worry and responsibility off your shoulders. Freedom can be the greatest gift.

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Choosing a Good Nursing Facility: 5 Things to Consider

With over 15,000 nursing homes across the United States, choosing the best nursing facility for your loved ones can be a struggle. According to the CDC, around 1.7 million people stay in one of these nursing homes each year, making your selection even more crucial.

You want to ensure that you or your loved ones still feel safe and comfortable in their temporary home away from home. Are they living in a safe and healthy environment? Do they receive proper care and support to help them recover fast? What kind of foods do they eat? What of the physical and wellness activities offered? Is there Medicare for seniors?

Choosing a good nursing facility is the gateway to quality care and fast recovery. The process may be tedious, but with these 5 easy steps, you can quickly tell a good rehab hospital from a bad one before enrolling.

Points to Consider When Choosing a Good Nursing Facility

Whether searching for a nursing home for you or your loved ones, these 5 key points will help you make the best decision possible.

How Can I Tell If It’s a Good Nursing Facility?

Skilled nursing facilities provide care for people discharged from the hospital but cannot take care of themselves at home yet. A great rehab hospital will speed up recovery and even enable you or your loved one to return home sooner than anticipated.

But how can you tell if it’s a good nursing facility?

● Location: The nursing facility should be close to your home. The closer it is, the easier it is to get visits from friends and family.

● Attractive food: A rehab hospital should serve a balanced, well-cooked diet, special meals for those with diet and health problems, and have a skilled nursing staff that monitors the residents’ nutritional intake.

● Safety: A good nursing facility is well maintained, right from the building to the facilities and furnishing. There should also be fire extinguishers and exit doors in case of emergencies.

● Sufficient staff: Every good rehab hospital should have adequate staff and different professionals such as physicians, physical therapists, and family counselors, among others. Skill nursing is a crucial part of a nursing facility; thus, every nursing home should have enough registered nurses and nursing assistants.

● Friendly Atmosphere: A good nursing facility should have a welcoming environment where everyone feels safe and free. This begins from the design of the buildings, shared spaces, rehabilitation units and goes all the way to the sub-acute rooms designated for short-term rehab stays. All the facility managers and staff should also be welcoming.

● Flexible visitation: Most nursing homes understandably tightened their visitations due to the Coronavirus pandemic. However, a good nursing facility will still find ways to allow interactions, even if it’s through window visits or video calls.

What Should I Bring to the First Appointment?

During your visit to the nursing home, make plans to talk with both the facility director and the nursing director to gather more information about the rehab hospital.

On your first appointment, make sure you have:

● An order from the physician requesting admission at a nursing facility

● Medical history and physical examination of the person seeking admission

● A state-required form that shows that the patient meets all the requirements for nursing facility admission

● Healthcare tests

● An order from the physician requesting medications and treatment of the patient

What Should I Look For on the Tour?

Before visiting a rehab hospital, write down all your specific needs and keep them in mind during your visit. The Medicare Nursing Home Checklist has some great ideas to consider when writing your list.

Be as observant during your tour and note every tiny but necessary detail. Here are some of the things to look for:

● The staff’s interaction with the residents: For example, do they yell at those with hearing problems?

● The hygienic state of the facility: Does it smell of disinfectants or urine? Bad odors indicate that sheets and clothing are not changed frequently.

● Observe the residents: Do they have untreated bedsores? Are they well-groomed? Do they have jewelry on?

● The facility’s atmosphere: Is the feeling homey?

● Observe the surrounding environment: Can you see plants, lamps, or paintings that add a homey atmosphere?

● Check lounges: Do they feel comfortable?

● Activities and entertainment: Are they offered? If yes, which ones? Are they easy to read (activities displayed on posters, if any)

● Rooms: Are they clearly marked? Is there important information displayed on them?

What Questions Should I Ask?

Do not be afraid to ask questions during your visit. Below are questions that should help you choose a good nursing facility.

1. Is the facility certified by Medicaid and Medicare? For how long has it been certified?

2. Does the nursing home have a Dementia unit or any other special care area designed for people with special needs?

3. What are the facility’s visiting hours?

4. How are residents with medical issues, e.g., a broken hip, handled?

5. Is the rehab hospital well lit, secure, clean, and with a friendly atmosphere?

6. What is the ratio of the staff to residents per shift?

7. Is there a library for those with audiobooks and large print?

8. Is there a safe space where residents can enjoy the outdoors, such as an enclosed garden?

9. Do the residents share a room or bathroom with one or more residents?

10. Are meals served together in one dining hall, or do the residents get their meals from their rooms?

11. Are there non-emergency medical services provided, such as dialysis? If not, how is the transportation arranged?

Where Should I Start?

Knowing where to start with your search for a suitable nursing facility may seem like a difficult task, but with proper help and research, you will find a good rehab hospital sooner than you think.

1. Start by seeking recommendations from the hospital staff. Due to their experience, they can help you find a nursing facility that provides care that suits your needs.

2. Know what you want. What can’t you compromise? Is it the nursing care, religion, meals, physical therapy, or a special care unit?

3. Talk to friends and family: Ask for suggestions from friends, social workers, doctors, family, pastors, etc.

4. Contact different nursing facilities: Get in touch with every facility on your list

5. Visit the facility

6. Ask questions during your visit

7. Visit the second time: On a different day of the week and without an appointment

8. Carefully go through your contract once you select a nursing facility before signing.

Contact StoneGate Senior Living Today

While selecting a good nursing facility can be a challenging process, these 5 tips will help ease your selection process and enable you to choose a facility that meets your needs.

Your care and those of your loved ones deserve great attention. At StoneGate Senior Living, we strive to offer the best care and living conditions any resident can get. Contact us today for our services or inquiries.

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Support Ideas for Seniors Spending the Holidays in Senior Living!

Options

The holidays can be a lonely time of year for many groups, and one of those groups is seniors who live outside the home. While many senior living options do the best to keep the festive spirit, it isn’t the same as a holiday at home surrounded by family. Unfortunately, it isn’t always an option to bring the seniors you love home for the holidays, especially if they are in a skilled nursing facility, so you have to come up with other options to make their holiday stress-free and heartwarming. These ideas may not be the solution that we would all love, but they will help ease the stress of the holiday season and remind your seniors that they are still in your heart and in your mind.

Keep It Positive

The holidays can be a depressing time for a lot of people, especially seniors. It tends to serve as a reminder about who is not there to celebrate anymore and how they cannot go to where everyone else is gathering. Try to keep things upbeat by only talking about happy memories, and don’t spend too much time talking about your holiday plans away from them. Remind them that they are still an essential part of your life and your family, and be gracious and thankful for any gifts you receive from them, because even if it seems minor to you, it may be a massive gesture for them.

Visit

If your senior can’t come to a Christmas get-together, bring the part to them instead. Many assisted living, and nursing homes have a room that you can use for an event. The room may already be set up for Christmas, but if it isn’t, show up a little early with a tree and some decorations to make the room feel like Christmas at home. A big family get-together may be just what your loved one needs to make it through the holiday season with cheer in their hearts. This is the perfect opportunity for a secret Santa or white elephant gift exchange as seeing so many people open gifts will surely bring joy to your senior’s heart.

Organize an Event

If you can’t make it to your loved one’s assisted living home, it doesn’t mean you are completely helpless; there is still a lot you can do to make their season bright. For example, work with a local school to see if their choir can visit the home and sing some carols or have a local preschool visit to do some holiday arts and crafts. Another option

is to live stream holiday events like school plays and concerts if you are looking for a socially distant event. Even sponsoring a holiday-themed soiree in the community space with apple cider and Christmas cookies will remind not just your senior but all the seniors that there are people out there who love them and are thinking about them during the season.

Send a Gift Package

Organizing an event may not be an option, but there are other ways you can let your seniors know you are thinking about them. Compile a care package full of all sorts of things to bring holiday joy. Of course, any goodies will likely be loved, but homemade items will help to bring back those happy memories of holiday baking. It doesn’t have to be just consumables either, add some other items to bring holiday cheer like a classic Christmas film or album that they can enjoy.

Support the Staff

Sometimes the best way to support your loved one over the holiday season is to support the respite care staff that takes care of them. In partnership with their facility, these caregivers are already doing a lot to make the holiday comfortable and happy for the one you love. There may not be a lot you can do to support them in their position, but you can let them know that you appreciate the care they give. Whether it is a gift card for coffee, a care package, or just a heartfelt letter letting them know how much they are appreciated, any support you give them will be passed on to the people in their care.

Make Them Feel Loved

The holidays are often a time when seniors reflect on what they don’t have more than what they have. Help them feel loved and be in the moment by creating new memories with them. Organize a picture campaign where all family members, not just the immediate family but the extended family too, send recent pictures to your senior. The pictures will probably brighten their day, but if you are close enough to visit and help make a collage they can hang in their room, that is even better. Along with the picture, have them send a brief Christmas letter highlighting only the most positive things in the past year. Add things like births and graduations and omit the more somber parts of the year. Unfortunately, many people in assisted living and skilled nursing homes are too familiar with Christmas cards being reminders of people who have passed and other unfortunate events of the year. At the end of the letter, add a personalized touch, so your loved one knows that they are being thought of and not just sent a generic letter that you send everyone else.

The True Meaning of the Holidays

As we go through life, it is easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the holidays as we are pulled in so many different directions. The seniors that we care about have only time to think and reflect on the holiday season’s good and not so good. It helps to pause and think about them in this busy time, as they can use our support, and we can learn something from them about the true meaning of Christmas. If you are worried about a senior spending their first year in an assisted living facility or have any other questions about how we can work together to give them a stress-free season, contact us with any questions or concerns you may have.

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